Anatomy of a Book

Looking back, our very best memories in Montanare always include at least one table under the giant olive tree. Rosy, Amy, Luisa, Piero, Francesca, and many more have created some of the best food we’ve ever put to our lips at this table. Rarely is it a single table. It usually begins with two rectangular wood tops and at least two round metal tables on either end. Piero would never …

Photo by Young Reflections Photography Some 30 years ago, as I weighed a new set of options in life, my mom, Jean, made a statement that has stayed with me always. Although dementia is stealing her mind as we speak, much of what I’ve accomplished, especially in the past six months, I owe to her. She’s the first to admit our family is made of unique fabric. Coming from a …

In the studio at the Northwest Italian Radio Show (KKND) with publisher Ethan Yarbrough Sharing stories from Miracles in Montanare: Ten Years in Tuscany on the Northwest Italian Radio Show feels a bit like I’m reading the book to the world. As Publisher, Ethan, and I described vignette after vignette, co-hosts David Madrid and Tony La Stella (both with Italian heritage) became enthusiastic fans. They get it. They know there …

Young Reflections Photography Once I told publisher, Ethan, and book designer, Sonja, that I had a date for the book launch, the drive to the finish line required a bit more gas pedal. A book release without books would be rather anti-climactic. Phone calls to confirm details from months past became a priority. The twenty-nine details about how the book would be printed, bound, and packaged all became unintended obsessions. …

Waking up yesterday morning, I grabbed my phone to kill the alarm. There was only one appointment on my calendar. In a way, this date has been there since well before mobile phones made their way into our world. It had all come down to this two hour pivot. A coming out of sorts, a chance for me to make good on a promise to myself I typed on a …

Backing Jill’s Toyota Highlander up the loading ramp at DCG One (one of Seattle’s largest commercial printers) yesterday, I was about to take possession of 980 copies of Miracles In Montanare: Ten Years in Tuscany. The nice young man brought out a shrink-wrapped pallet of boxes on a pallet jack. A little re-organizing was in order to make his “shipment” fit in my pedestrian SUV. Once I found our common …

Holding the first book in my hands! The culmination of 10 years of envisioning, planning and work. Two days ago, Publisher Ethan Yarbrough of Iron Twine Press walked through my front door with a medium-sized box under his arm. I knew what was coming. This moment was a decade in the making. As I pulled the first flap back and then the second, a moment of emotion gave me pause. It felt …

Due to good fortune and a set of special friendships that lighten the credit card hit, Jill, Daniela, and I are able to spend nearly a month each summer in Tuscany. With every trip to the old country, I keep a list of experiences that occur during our stay, subjects and events I will want to write about. With few exceptions, that list is never less than 20 new stories. …